The importance of being Ernest

Hey, Blog Guy, I hear there’s a town someplace where everybody looks like the author Ernest Hemingway. What would that be like? It sounds very Kafkaesque!

Well, no, it would be Kafkaesque if they looked like Franz Kafka, but I know what you mean. You’re talking about a place in Florida where they all look like actress Mariel Hemingway’s grandfather for a few days a year. I believe plastic surgery is involved.

Boy, you really know a lot. Is that where Hemingway wrote his classic book about a retired man who goes back to college but only gets very average grades?

Ernest Hemingway lookalikes conclude the annual “Running of the Bulls,” outside Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West, Florida, July 21, 2007. A facet of the island’s annual Hemingway Days festival, Key West’s whimsical version of the bull run is much shorter and far safer than its counterpart in Pamplona, Spain. REUTERS/Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau/Handout

None of this explains why the man on the right is wearing a red satin nightgown with white trim, matching beret, and (if I’m interpreting the photo correctly) high-heeled matching red satin boots. I think he showed up six months late for the Fabulous Santa contest.